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Adjustable Cam Gear, which way?

I just got an adjustable cam sprocket and i need help. I heard advancing it 6 degrees is the best for accel and making it act like a v8. what i need to know is if i am facing my motor and gear which way do i turn it to advance it? also is it true if i retarding it 2 degrees it will give me better trap speeds? anyways which way is advance and which is retard

Your adjustable cam gear should have + and - symbols on it. + is adv and - is retard.

BUT - what cam are you running? advancing and retarding a stock cam will not change the HP of your engine. It will move the powerband around .. meaning: advancing the cam will move the power lower in the rpms and retarding moves it to higher rpms.

moving a stock one 6 deg is going to make things MUCH different. If you retard a stock cam that much .. you could be running a risk of late ignition (red glowing exhaust manifold under normal driving). If you advance it that much .. you could see some pre-ignition (detonation).

i have a ranger roller cam. i just want my hp to kick in sonner for better accel. I have a racer walsh ultralite gear that just has 0 in hte middle and then 1-10 to the right and 1-10 to the left, no plus and minus and i lost the instructions

Joey - I'm not totally sure ... and I don't have personal experience with a R/R cam - but, my tip would be ... move it 4 deg one way and take it for a quick run down the road ... you notice real quick which way is what. Just remember .. advancing moves the powerband lower - retarding moves it higher. By doing this either way .. you're limiting one factor of your powerband. Either your cam can run flat up top (advanced) or you'll lose low end grunt (retard).

Personally .. I adv my stock 85 cam 2 deg and lower my boost levels when I autocross. Gives more low end tq over the high end HP stuff .. which is where I need it on a low mph course (60mph and under).

thanks. and no i dont need to remove it to adjust it. i wanna advance it 6 degrees so i can get some more quicker accel so i can really smoke the rice rockets. my car is basically stock except for a cone airfileter, ranger roller cam, full 3 inch exhaust, cam gear, and a bunch of suspension work. But i soon plan to add a ported e6 and a 65mm tb, and maybe a gutted intake.

OK, help here

I searched and ressurected this thread to help sort my new 2R out. For those following the saga, I unbolted the down pipe to no avail. The car still has no power, runs poorly. So, now, I'm turning my attention to timing. Remember that this car was running at roughly 20 deg ATDC, and the location of the distributor in the motor (TFI pointing backwards almost pointing at the oil cooler) suggests someone has been screwing around with it. Now I suspect that the car has either jumped a tooth or has other issues. By way of history, in another thread, I detailed replacing all the tune-up parts with MC, cleaning the IAC, replacing TFI and TPS (Code 23) checking fuel pressure and pulling codes, and the car still has spool up issues (I haven't pulled vac on the wastegate, but will tonight) Everyone thought the cat or exhaust was pluged, so I checked and it's clear. Car still is dogging. The car has a Racer Walsh adjustable cam gear on it and it's clearly not set to the neutral position there is a
-10/+10 marking on the gear and it appears to be at roughly 6 degrees to the plus side, however I have two problems. After backing off the cap screws in the RW gear, I can't get it to move at all by turning on the center bolt. What the hell am I missing. Also, without having the stock timing marks from the stock cam gear, is there some other reference on the RW piece I can use?

EDIT: Not sure whether there is a stock cam in the motor. I suspect from the various low buck attempts to build HP I've seen on this car, the internals are prolly stock. Also, why would one retard ignition timing and advance cam timing. I don't get it????

normally, it's easier to spin the crank, and keep the cam still, once you loosen the bolts on the adjustable pulley.

EDIT -- the trick for doing cam timing without a pointer --
take a piece of string, and run it between the center of the aux shaft bolt, to the center of the cam shaft bolt. That should be close enough to get you a cam timing mark.

Re: OK, help here

Originally posted by Gyrhead I searched and ressurected this thread to help sort my new 2R out. For those following the saga, I unbolted the down pipe to no avail. The car still has no power, runs poorly. So, now, I'm turning my attention to timing. Remember that this car was running at roughly 20 deg ATDC, and the location of the distributor in the motor (TFI pointing backwards almost pointing at the oil cooler) suggests someone has been screwing around with it. Now I suspect that the car has either jumped a tooth or has other issues. By way of history, in another thread, I detailed replacing all the tune-up parts with MC, cleaning the IAC, replacing TFI and TPS (Code 23) checking fuel pressure and pulling codes, and the car still has spool up issues (I haven't pulled vac on the wastegate, but will tonight) Everyone thought the cat or exhaust was pluged, so I checked and it's clear. Car still is dogging. The car has a Racer Walsh adjustable cam gear on it and it's clearly not set to the neutral position there is a
-10/+10 marking on the gear and it appears to be at roughly 6 degrees to the plus side, however I have two problems. After backing off the cap screws in the RW gear, I can't get it to move at all by turning on the center bolt. What the hell am I missing. Also, without having the stock timing marks from the stock cam gear, is there some other reference on the RW piece I can use?

EDIT: Not sure whether there is a stock cam in the motor. I suspect from the various low buck attempts to build HP I've seen on this car, the internals are prolly stock. Also, why would one retard ignition timing and advance cam timing. I don't get it????

Paul, when you had the down pipe off did you check the condition of thr wastegate puck? It may be broken off. Also to check the actuator you'll need to apply pressure to the line(a/b 10 psi) not vaccum.

Re: Sure Eric.

Originally posted by Gyrhead I know I should have paid attention at the Reunion's cam clinic, rather than searching for the Eternal Buzz Fish

I think that Kurt Hepner and Rick Trace both caught the cam timing clinics and more on CD or DVD. Contact them for your copy.

Best thing to do is to hunt down a replacement timing cover (back side too if necessary) and put things back together the way they're supposed to be. If any front seals are leaking, now is the time to replace them and re-stab that distributor.

Email me a cell phone# and a time you'll be working on the car. Pics of the front of the engine (where the sprocket marks are pointing) in advance would be helpful as well.

I have s "related" question to all this cam timing stuff. I have an 86 SVO. The tensioner pulley broke off when travelling between Nashville & Cleveland. Many years ago I put in an underdrive pulley set and the darn thing doesn't have an indicator for crank position on it. I have the original pulley, but try as I may, I can't get the bolt lose to get the smaller pulley off! Any tips on getting the crank pulley off? Also, I need to remove that pulley on the timing chain that has some sort of function that I'm not aware of. How does one get that off? (When the tensioner pulley came apart it broke the inner and outer covers).